A space station on mars?

June 7, 2011

While this can almost certainly be chalked up to photographic noise or perhaps some strange colored rocks, an armchair astronomer has found an interesting structure while using Mars mode in Google Earth.

David Martines was randomly flying around Mars in Google Earth when he noticed the structure on the planet. He then created a YouTube video showing it off, and the video has racked up over 700,000 views!
[UPDATE: The video has been removed from YouTube, though we don’t know why.]
Of course, none of this would even be possible if it wasn’t for the excellent Mars feature that Google added as part of Google Earth 5.
To access Mars mode in Google Earth, simply click the planet icon at the top of the screen, and choose “Mars” from the dropdown, as shown here:

About Mickey Mellen

Mickey has been using Google Earth since it was released in 2005, and has created a variety of geo-related sites including Google Earth Hacks. He runs a web design firm in Marietta, GA, where he lives with his wife and two kids.

Comments

I find the uncritical baloney in the reporting about this as repulsive as this guy’s assumptions. Most of all I wouldn’t even call him “armchair astronomer” – he’s not an astronomer by any stretch of the definition whatsoever. He’s just a guy with Google Earth. Astronomers are scientists. Scientists wouldn’t jump to ridiculous conclusions that defy Occam’s Razor (it’s a space station!) based on nothing but a small bunch of pixels that could be anything.

Maybe it is just a phantom settlement, made-up by Google employees to identify copyright infringements.
If someone copies maps and claims it is not stolen, then one can prove that the stolen maps contain the same errors.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_trap#Maps

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